Paris (AFP)

After a few weeks of delay, telecom operators now know all the conditions of allocation of frequencies used for the deployment of 5G, with the announcement by the government of the minimum price.

In the business paper Les Échos, the Secretary of State to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, announced Sunday that the reserve price was set at 2.17 billion euros for all frequencies made available.

An amount she describes as "very attractive", close to the 1.5 billion euros requested by the Telecom Regulatory Authority (Arcep), which campaigned for a low reserve price to allow all operators to compete.

Yet, for the operators, it is far from the expected philosophy, the latter wishing to have a minimum amount to pay in exchange for more draconian coverage obligations.

An approach that had prevailed a little over a year ago, during the "new mobile deal", for which the state had extended the duration of allocation of several frequencies, without going through the auction, in exchange for a better coverage in 4G, especially in the white areas.

"We are in an unprecedented equation with operators who have never had so many investment obligations and a potentially large amount of spectrum commitment.This equation is not consistent with what has been advanced in recent months. by the government, "said the president of the French Federation of Telecoms, Arthur Dreyfuss, interviewed by AFP.

Specifically, the four operators with a network of their own, Bouygues Telecom, Free, Orange and SFR, will initially pay 350 million euros each to benefit from a first block of 50 megahertz (MHz) of frequencies, or a first return of 1.4 billion euros for the state.

Then the rest of the available frequencies will be auctioned, for a minimum of 70 million euros per 10 MHz block, for a total of 110 MHz available.

A model that could lead operators to spend far more than the 2.17 billion euros of the reserve price set by the government.

- Gray mine at the operators -

"The procedure is strangely turned," said a market analyst to AFP Friday, "it has all the conditions to raise the auction high enough because operators will need to have enough frequencies if they want to be in able to offer everything the 5G needs to bring. "

The operators "invest 10 billion euros each year to bring the fiber and 4G to all French," said Mr. Dreyfuss, "in a market with the lowest subscription prices in Europe and the most tax important. "

For operators, difficult to accept to pay the high price for the frequencies, as they had already had to do in 2016 to obtain the 700MHz band, and then have to invest heavily in the deployment of their network.

Especially since they remain in the dark about the equipment manufacturers they will be able to use. Essential data to start setting up the 5G network.

The government has passed a law to further improve the security of networks, including giving the National Agency for Computer Systems Security (ANSSI) an increased role since the latter will validate each installed equipment.

In question, the questions around the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, accused by the United States of allowing Chinese intelligence to spy on telecom networks via the group's equipment, an accusation rejected by Huawei and for which Washington does not has not brought any proof.

But the decrees of application have still not been published, preventing operators from placing an order with the equipment manufacturers, with a view to future deployments.

"When we invest it is not for 18 or 24 months but for 10 or 15 years, it is therefore urgent that the government finally seriously clarifies the subject of equipment manufacturers: if an equipment supplier was to be banned, on all or part of territory, France would take considerable delays, "says Arthur Dreyfuss.

In France, Bouygues Telecom and SFR are the only operators to use Huawei equipment for their 4G network.

© 2019 AFP